New report says Apple's homegrown 5G modem chip won't be ready for the iPhone 17 series
When Apple and Qualcomm were battling each other in court constantly and not exactly on speaking terms, Apple tasked Intel with developing a 5G modem chip so that it wouldn't have to deal with the San Diego-based Qualcomm. Eventually, Apple gave up on Intel and paid Qualcomm a large sum of money to drop all lawsuits and agree to ship 5G modem chips to Apple. The agreement was made in 2018 which was a couple of years before the iPhone 12 line became the first iPhone models to support 5G.
Looking to eventually replace Qualcomm with its own 5G modem chip. Apple found $1 billion underneath a couch cushion and used it to buy most of Intel's smartphone modem chip business. The purchase came with 17,000 patents and 2,200 Intel employees who joined Apple as part of the deal.
Apple was hoping to have its homegrown 5G modem chip ready for the iPhone 15 series, but that turned out not to be possible. Apple's next goal was to have its 5G modem chip ready for the 2025 iPhone 17 series, but that also appears likely not to happen according to Bloomberg.
Apple was hoping that Intel could produce a 5G modem chip that could compete with Qualcomm's modem
This past September, Apple and Qualcomm signed a deal that will keep Apple supplied with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 5G modem chips through 2026. And Apple might need every one of the modem chips it arranged to buy. That's because the tech giant will be lucky if it has its 5G modem chip finished by the end of 2025. For Qualcomm, which had already assumed the worst a few years ago and expected to have a small share of the iPhone 5G modem chip business by 2024, it is like living on borrowed time.
Trying to build its own 5G modem chip has been a rough experience for Apple. Just a few days after Apple and Qualcomm agreed to the new pact, a report in The Wall Street Journal mentioned that the homegrown 5G modem chip that Apple had been testing was so big that it took up half of the internal space of an iPhone. It also was too slow and would overheat.
Apple instead decided to continue using Qualcomm's Snapdragon X-series 5G modem chip with the iPhone 15 line employing the Snapdragon X70 5G modem. With the latest deal with Qualcomm covering Apple through 2026, the latter has just three years at the most to whip its own 5G modem chip into shape. If it becomes obvious that Apple won't be able to get this done in time to equip the 2027 iPhone 19 with its own modems, you can expect Apple to extend its contract with Qualcomm again.
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